Grade 2

Grade Two Standards for Reading and Writing

Reading

Second-Grade Reading Standard 1: Print-Sound Code

At the end of second grade, students should be able to:

read regularly spelled one- and two-syllable words automatically; and

recognize or figure out most irregularly spelled words and such spelling patterns as diphthongs, special vowel spellings and common word endings.

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Second-Grade Reading Standard 2: Getting the Meaning

Accuracy

By the end of second grade, students should be able to:

independently read aloud Level L books with 90 percent or better accuracy of word recognition.

Fluency

By the end of the year, second-graders should be able to:

independently read aloud from unfamiliar Level L books that they have previewed silently on their own, using intonation, pauses and emphasis that signal the structure of the sentence and the meaning of the text; and

use the cues of punctuation - including commas, periods, questions marks and quotation marks - to guide them in getting meaning and fluently reading aloud.

Self-Monitoring and Self-Correcting Strategies

By the end of the year, second-graders should be able to:

know when they don't understand a paragraph and search for clarification clues within the text; and

examine the relationship between earlier and later parts of the text and figure out how they make sense together.

Comprehension

When they independently read texts, including functional and informational texts, students at the end of second grade should be able to do all of the things expected of them in first grade, both orally and in writing. In addition, second-graders should be able to:

recognize and be able to talk about organizing structures;

combine information from two different parts of the text;

infer cause-and-effect relationships that are not stated explicitly;

compare the observations of the author to their own observations when reading nonfiction texts; and

discuss how, why and what-if questions about nonfiction texts.

For texts that are read to them, children at the end of second grade should be able to do all of the things they can do for independently read texts. In addition, second-grade students should be able to:

discuss or write about the themes of a book - what the messages of the book might be;

trace characters and plots across multiple episodes, perhaps ones that are read on several successive days; and

relate later parts of a story to earlier parts, in terms of themes, cause and effect, etc.

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Second-Grade Reading Standard 3: Reading Habits

Independent and Assisted Reading

Second-Grade students should:

read one or two short books or long chapters every day and discuss what they read with another student or a group;

read good children's literature every day;

read multiple books by the same author and be able to discuss differences and similarities among these books;

reread some favorite books or parts of longer books, gaining deeper comprehension and knowledge of author's craft;

read narrative accounts, responses to literature (pieces written by other students, book blurbs and reviews), informational writing, reports, narrative procedures, recountings, memoirs, poetry, plays and other genres;

read their own writing and the writing of their classmates, including pieces compiled in class books or placed on public display;

read the functional and instructional messages they see in the classroom environment (for example, announcements, labels, instructions, menus and invitations) and some of those encountered outside school; and

voluntarily read to each other, signaling their sense of themselves as readers.

Being Read To

Every day, second-grade students should:

have worthwhile literature read to them to model the language and craft of good writing; and

listen to and discuss at least one text that is longer and more difficult than what they can read independently or with assistance.

In addition, second-graders should

hear texts read aloud from a variety of genres; and

use reading strategies explicitly modeled by adults in read-alouds and assisted reading.

Discussing Books

Students at the end of second grade should be able to:

demonstrate the skills we look for in the comprehension component of Reading Standard 2: Getting the Meaning;

recognize genre features and compare works by different authors in the same genre;

discuss recurring themes across works;

paraphrase or summarize what another speaker has said and check whether the original speaker accepts the paraphrase;

sometimes challenge another speaker on logic or inference;

ask other speakers to provide supporting information or details; and

politely correct someone who paraphrases or interprets their ideas incorrectly (for example, "That's not what I meant...").

Vocabulary

Second-Grade students should be able to:

recognize when they don't know what a word means and use a variety of strategies for making sense of how it is used in the passage they are reading;

talk about the meaning of some new words encountered in reading after they have finished reading and discussing a text;

notice and show interest in understanding unfamiliar words in texts that are read to them;

know how to talk about what nouns mean in terms of function (for example, "An apple is something you eat"), features (for example, "Some apples are red") and category (for example, "An apple is a kind of fruit"); and

learn new words every day from their reading and talk.

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Writing

Second-Grade Writing Standard 1: Habits and Processes

Habits and Processes

Second-grade students should:

write daily

generate their own topics and make decisions about which pieces to work on over several days or longer;

extend pieces of writing by, for example, turning a narrative into a poem or a short description into a long report;

regularly solicit and provide useful feedback;

routinely reread, revise, edit and proofread their work;

take on strategies and elements of author's craft that the class has discussed in the study of literary works;

apply commonly agreed upon criteria and their own judgment to assess the quality of their own work; and

polish at least 10 pieces throughout the year.

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Second-Grade Writing Standard 2: Writing Purposes and Resulting Genres

Sharing Events, Telling Stories: Narrative Writing

By the end of the year, second-grade students should produce narratives - both fictional and autobiographical - in which they:

incorporate some literary or "writing" language that does not sound like speech (for example, "Slowly, slowly he turned," "For days and weeks and months, I've worked for this moment");

create a believable world and introduce characters, rather than simply recount a chronology of events, using specific details about characters and settings and developing motives and moods;

develop internal events as well as external ones (for example, the child may tell not only what happened to a character but also what the character wondered, remembered, and hoped);

write in first and third person; and

use dialogue effectively.

Informing Others: Report or Informational Writing

By the end of the year, second-grade students should produce reports in which they:

have an obvious organizational structure (often patterned after chapter book headings);

communicate big ideas, insights or theories that have been elaborated on or illustrated through facts, details, quotations, statistics and information;

usually have a concluding sentence or section; and

use diagrams, charts or illustrations as appropriate to the text.

Getting Things Done: Functional and Procedural Writing

By the end of the year, we expect second-grade students to produce narrative procedures that:

establish a context for the piece;

identify the topic;

show the steps in an action in enough detail to follow them;

include relevant information;

use language that is straightforward and clear; and

frequently use pictures to illustrate steps in the procedure.

Producing and Responding to Literature

Producing literature - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

write stories, memoirs, poems, songs, and dramas - conforming to appropriate expectations for each form;

write a story using styles learned from studying authors and genres; and

write poetry using techniques they observe through a study of the genre.

Responding to literature - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

provide a retelling;

write letters to the author telling what they thought or asking questions;

make a plausible claim about what they have read (for example, suggesting a big idea or theme and offering evidence from the text);

write variations on texts they have read, telling the story from a new point of view, putting in a new setting, altering a crucial character or rewriting the ending; and

make connections between the text and their own ideas and lives.

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Second-Grade Writing Standard 3: Language Use and Conventions

Style and Syntax

Using one's own language - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

use all sentence patterns typical of spoken language;

incorporate transition words and phrases; and

use various embeddings (phrases, modifiers) as well as coordination and subordination.

Taking on language of authors - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

use varying sentence patterns and lengths to slow reading down, speed it up or create a mood;

embed literary language where appropriate; and

reproduce sentence structures found in the various genres they are reading.

Vocabulary and Word Choice

Using one's own language - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

use words from their speaking vocabulary in their writing, including words they have learned from reading and class discussion; and

make word choices that reveal they have a large enough vocabulary to exercise options in word choice.

Taking on language of authors - by the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

make choices about which words to use on the basis of whether they accurately convey the intended meaning; and

extend their writing vocabulary by using specialized words related to the topic or setting of their writing (for example, the names of kinds of trees if they are writing about a forest).

Spelling

By the end of the year, second-grade students should be able to:

use a discernible logic to guide their spelling of unfamiliar words, making incorrect spellings less random;

produce writing in which most high-frequency words are spelled correctly;

correctly spell most words with regularly spelled patterns such as consonant-vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant-silent e and one-syllable words with blends;

correctly spell most inflectional endings, including plurals and verb tenses; and

use correct spelling patterns and rules most of the time.

In addition, second-graders should:

use specific spelling strategies during the writing process (for example, consult a word wall to check a spelling, think about the base and prefixes and suffixes they know); and

engage in the editing process, perhaps with a partner, to correct spelling errors.

Punctuation, Capitalization and Other Conventions

Although second-graders meeting standards may not have consistent control over punctuation, they should show their understanding by incorporating all the commonly used punctuation marks to some degree in their writing. By the end of the year, they should be able to:

use capital letters at the beginning of sentences;

use periods to end sentences;

approximate the use of quotation marks;

use capital letters and exclamation marks for emphasis;

use question marks; and

use common contractions.

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*from Reading & Writing Grade by Grade, New Standards Primary Literacy Standards ã 1999 National Center on Education and the Economy and the University of Pittsburgh.

New Standardsä is a trademark of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the University of Pittsburgh.

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